Baghjan oil well blowout that took place on May 27 completed 100 days

TINSUKIA: The Baghjan oil well blowout that took place on May 27 completed 100 days on Thursday. The Oil India Limited (OIL) has remained unsuccessful in all fronts as it allegedly relied mostly on false propaganda and misadventure.

A technically unequipped Navaratna company, the OIL had to depend on outsourcing agencies, including an obscure Singapore-based 'Alert Disaster Control' for material and technical support that pocketed crores of rupees of taxpayers' money and retreated to their destinations.

The Tinsukia district administration, particularly the Deputy Commissioner, has remained silent all along and preferred to keep the media out of its purview during the past 100 days.

OIL CMD Sushil Chandra Mishra stated before the media in Tinsukia on the fifth day of the blowout (May 31) that a fortnight would be required to bring the oil well inferno under control, besides ridiculously affirming that the condensate gushing out from the BGR-5 was not 'harmful'!

During the past two-and-half months, the OIL issued press releases on a daily basis stating that the loss of production due to the blockade of other oil wells. But it intriguingly did not furnish the quantum of gases burnt in terms of its value.

If Justice BP Katakey's report (page 30 of Chapter-IV) that mentioned the 'Estimated loss of production due to blowout at well BGR-5 is 90-95000 M3 of gas and 10 to 15 M3 of condensate per day', and submitted to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) is of any indication, that implied quantum of loss in the past 100 days would be astronomical and stands at 950 thousand billion litres of gas and 1500 thousand litres of condensate till date!

According to an oil technologist, 90000 m3 would be equivalent to 3178 MMBTU having a price tag of 2.39 USD per MMBTU which amounted to Rs 5,57,188 per day for gas alone.

The OIL, after the Dikom blowout in 2005, mooted an idea to draw a holistic contingency disaster plan encompassing all emergency parameters which never materialized, said a retired technical expert of OIL. He even wondered why M/s Boots & Coots, that successfully capped Dikom and Deohal blowouts, was not engaged.

"It was always in the card that in the wake of well blowout anywhere in the world, a relief well was dug to reduce pressure simultaneously with the capping operation. Why did OIL take three months to decide for such a relief well?" he questioned.

While the compensation issue to the affected families of Baghjan, Dighaltarang, Natungaon, Koliapani and Gotong is yet to be resolved even as dharnas and blockades are continuing, the Tinsukia district administration have been maintaining a stoic silence on this volatile issue.

A source in the administration said the Baghjan issue is being looked after single-handedly by the DC himself with feedbacks from the Circle Officers without involving any ADC. Despite so much of unrest and several reconciliation meetings with the protestors, the DC did not convene a single press meet on Baghjan issue since the blowout on May 27. With new DC Diganta Saikia assuming charge on Friday, the Baghjan issue is likely to be his top priority.

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